Gaming In Sweden Bigger Than Football and Hockey 252
An anonymous reader writes "SIFO (a major Swedish survey company) has conducted a gaming survey right before the launch of Dreamhack Winter. One of the results is that gaming is bigger than football and hockey combined."
They're catching up. (Score:4, Funny)
Nice to see we have some friendly competition for the coveted "Most Hours Spent Sitting on Our Arse" award. *looks around* Hmm. Why are all these people looking at me like I just ran over their dog? And at least four of them have pitchforks.
Well, I'm going for a walk!
*backs away slowly*
Re:They're catching up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Computer games are an indoor sport. That it would be popular in areas that get mightily cold in winter is no surprise.
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It gets cold in Korea.
Some of the best software has been developed in cold climates, like this Finnish kid that re-wrote Minix. Torvalds....
This is not to slime the Aussies, or anyone else. Computing is an indoor port, and so is gaming-- until a practical outdoor display works.
It's easy to understand why (Score:5, Funny)
It's easy to understand why. Have you ever tried kicking a football on skates?
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Yes, but that doesn't explain why lacrosse isn't more popular.
Re:It's easy to understand why (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's easy to understand why (Score:5, Funny)
Same reason you play any sport. To impress girls.
Nerdcore uprising (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nerdcore uprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no.
Jocks and athletes have power in secondary schools simply because their ego is fed by the swooning girls who are hardwired to look for guys who can protect them. In secondary school, girls think that big, strong guys provide the daddy-style protection that they covet. It's not until later (20 to 30) that most women figure out it's the nerds that will provide the economic protection that they really want. Of course, by that time, the nerds will have picked up zero in the socialisation department and not know what to do to pick up the chicks.
Re:Nerdcore uprising (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny how so many people seem to have gone to school on a different planet than I did ...
I guess maybe it's how you look at things. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." I'd put it differently: whether you are an insider and outsider is a matter of perspective. If you aspire to be something you aren't cut out to be, then you're an outsider.
Re:Nerdcore uprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry but I'm fairly certain I didn't imagine getting my glasses stolen (hidden in the teachers' desk). Or sand dumped on my head. Or my gymbag thrown into the girls' locker room.
This isn't just a matter of "attitude" but repeated hazing. If American teachers were doing a proper job, they wouldn't turn a blind eye to this stuff, but instead intercede and punish the instigators. But because the instigators are usually "cool" jocks, they don't do a thing.
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The public school system I went to consisted of a huge number of students who had been groomed for success from an early age. They excelled in math, science, and the humanities - 98% of the graduating class went on to college, many to Ivy League universities, some to MIT, some to Stanford.
A great number of them were also merciless sadists who took great delight in tormenting me and anyone else who was not a member of this huge clique. When they weren't passing tests in computer science with flying colors,
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Personally, I never noticed any "Teen Movie" like hazing.
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I wasn't actively trying to be different, I wasn't working at conforming either. Some people are offended and ang
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In my experience, there's different types of girls, just like there are guys. If you want cheerleaders, then yes, you probably want to be a jock. But there's more girls in music, dance, political groups, and theater than there ever were in cheerleading (at least in both my HS and college) and they tend to look for different qualities: ability to intelligently carry on a conversation not related to D&D, emotional support, and well, being interesting.
It's unfortunate that so many nerds tend to take the
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You can kind of be into tech while also being interesting - posting my digital photos on deviantArt was how I met my first gf (though I wish I hadn't - turns out she was a sucky girlfriend, and not in a good way)
Re:Nerdcore uprising (Score:5, Insightful)
they tend to look for different qualities: ability to intelligently carry on a conversation not related to D&D, emotional support, and well, being interesting.
Don't confuse traits girls may look for in a friend with traits they look for in someone they actually want to have sex with.
The difficulty is that human beings are fantastic at self-deception, and often the qualities that a person tells you they're looking for in a mate are not really the qualities they're looking for, but are whatever allows them to think of themselves in a positive light and avoid too much cognitive dissonance. In practice, if the reality of their behavior doesn't fit with their image of themselves, it can always be rationalized later.
In light of the constant state of self-deception that people live in (it's a fantastic evolutionarily strategy), taking advice from a woman on what she wants in someone to actually have sex with is like asking the Devil for advice on avoiding sin - it will always lead you wrong. If you want to learn, pay attention to the behavior, not the words.
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I'd venture if more nerds dropped the attitude of being into technology at the expense of all other interests, they'd probably have an easier time socially.
They'd also cease to be nerds.
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>>>nerds will have picked up zero in the socialisation department and not know what to do to pick up the chicks
"Hi. My name is ______. I couldn't help noticing your beautiful smile. :-) What's your name?"
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Thanks a lot, buddy.
You should have seen her face when I tried to introduce myself by saying "Hi. My name is underscore-underscore-underscore-underscore-underscore-underscore. I couldn't help noticing your beautiful smile. :-) What's your name?"
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Naah. Hench nerds still don't have the social skills, but they aren't beat up on as much by the jock types.
It's still a broad generalization... I'm very much a nerd, but still have decent social skills. I can pretend to be mostly normal if I have to ;) But many nerds don't realize that social skills are still a skill that requires effort and time and practice to develop, just like athleticism, or video game playing, chess club, whatever.
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But, what women (and men) look for in a mate isn't really controlled largely by the intellec
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When I was in HS, I didn't need other girls to relate to. I was happy to be friends with a bunch of geeky guys. And I still am
Re:Nerdcore uprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it was just my school, but the line between "jock" and "nerd" blurred a lot. At least so much as "nerd" is defined as the smarter kids who typically do well as far as grades. Most of the top athletes at my school were actually in the top of their class (and that wasn't any fudging going on - most of them I'd known since grade school and they'd always made good grades even before athletics came into play). I myself played offensive line (Guard, though I'll admit despite being 1st string I wasn't really considered a "star player") and graduated second in my class. At least one of the guys who was a few years ahead of me graduated with honors AND had the unique distinction of never missing a single day of school from grade K through 12. Absolutely perfect attendance. He later played for both the Cleavland Browns and the Denver Broncos.
We just didn't have that TV drama "guys with letterman jackets picking on the smart kids" thing going on. I've often wondered if that we were just an exception or if that situation plays out less often in real life than on TV.
There was CERTAINLY a division between the athletes and the "kinda goth" (I say kinda goth because these guys were not quite as white makeup and weird as TV goths - rather some Southern goth variant), but that was pretty much separate from grades. It also was mostly just a situation where the two groups didn't associate rather than actively persecuting each other. Both groups had their smart and dumb people with about equal frequency.
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This was true in my high school as well. A large portion of the football team went to ivy leauge schools (we're in Texas). The ones that didn't however either made it into 2nd or 3rd tier state colleges in a highschool with an 80% "goes on to college" rate, where most of the students head off to 1st or 2nd tier state colleges.
Re:Nerdcore uprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the top athletes at my school were actually in the top of their class (and that wasn't any fudging going on - most of them I'd known since grade school and they'd always made good grades even before athletics came into play). I myself played offensive line
Many people on the football team thought the same thing about the team captains. I heard people saying that one of the captains should have been valedictorian because he was the smartest person they knew.
In actuality, they didn't know the smartest kids in the school because they didn't take the same classes as those kids (myself included). If they had paid attention, they would have known that the valedictorian had done research that was being published in journals and that there were more than a dozen students (out of 200 or so) who were ahead of him academically. He obviously wasn't dumb, and he did well in school and will likely do well in life, but he wasn't at the top of the class. Like your school, there wasn't any animosity, just a lack of socialization between the groups.
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It's too cold (Score:3, Funny)
Who wants to be outside in cold wet weather physically exerting themselves when you can be toasty and lazy sitting on the couch?
25% of my society is sweedish (Score:3, Interesting)
About 25% of my online society (Hunters-unlimited.com) is sweedish and uses those funny little dots in their words. Plus one or the games we play (entropiauniverse.com) is also sweedish, They are a pleasure to play with, speaking multiple languages (for the most part). With all that extra night time in the winter they keep our soc warm.
Re:25% of my society is sweedish (Score:4, Informative)
It's 'Swedish' by the way. At least in English it is.
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Re:25% of my society is sweedish (Score:4, Funny)
They will be punished.
Re:25% of my society is sweedish (Score:5, Funny)
Good (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe in 10 years the game of hockey will return to normal, and we won't have to worry about the prancing-through-the-daffodil-swedes wrecking our game with their pseudo-soccer-take-the-fall style of game.
I kid, I kid
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I take it you're not a Red Wings fan, aka the Swedish National farm team.
More than - played - football and hockey (Score:2)
.
But fundamentally, organized league play is a physically demanding - potentially very dangerous sport - at every level. Typically kids begin training no later than nine or ten and it's a big investment in time and money.
You can be a Wii Bowler and call yourself physically active. But that isn't going to be good enough to keep you competitive on the rink with a talented seventh grader.
What about the asians? (Score:2, Informative)
borkborkbork (Score:5, Funny)
Why is this surprising? (Score:5, Interesting)
Museums, it turns out, have much higher attendance in aggregate than professional sports. They have a much greater net economic impact than professional sports as well. A single headliner museum in a city can bring in a quarter of a billion dollars annually; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (an absolutely amazing place) was shown to bring in 369 million annually to the Boston area in a recent study. This is actually comparable to the annual revenue of the Red Sox; the net impact of the Red Sox on regional economy might be somewhat more, but there are a lot more comparable cultural institutions in Boston than there are comparable sports teams. You can walk across the street from the MFA to the Gardner, a smaller but equally culturally significant art museum. Boston is a famous sports town, but it is stuffed to the gills with cultural institutions that have heavy attendance every day (except possibly Mondays) year round.
I think one of the reasons for the outsize impact of cultural institutions is that they have a mission to have an impact. They're supposed to maximize bodies in the doors, eyeballs on the exhibits. Sports franchises aren't run that way. They're run to maximize profit.
Gaming's higher impact is likewise related to the fact you can do it every day. However it isn't going to have the same economic impact as having strong cultural institutions.
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That's a very interesting post. But I think the numbers must tilt heavily in favor of spectator sports if you include not just attendance but also sports on TV (which I believe is the main source of revenue for most pro sports franchises). Most sports fans I know see about two orders of magnitude more games on television than live. This would account for why, although museums have more live attendance, you're more likely to end up talking about sports around the water cooler.
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Coincidentally, I am planning a trip to Boston right now. The MFA is indeed spectacular and enough to entice a Miami boy to venture north into the freezing cold.
The New England Aquarium also has
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I endorse your recommendations. Also, if you've been to the MFA, definitely ought to walk across the street to the Gardner. It's a must see. I'm serious, if you think the MFA is a reason to visit Boston, you have to do the Gardner.
With respect to Harvard's museums, you should consider in addition to Natural History the Fogg, (art), Peabody (archaeology) and most especially in the Spring or Summer the Arnold Arboretum (the tree museum), which is a must see.
The Peabody Essex in Salem can be combined with a
Gaming Jock (Score:2)
But the gaming jock is never going to sleep with the prom queen.
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it is cheaper too (Score:2)
Gaming is also cheap compared to attending a soccer event. The stadium entrance fee ranges from 50 to 100 Euros and you get 90 min of entertainment. A PS3 costs about 400 Euros (depending on the version) and a game sales at about 25 Euros (prices of course vary), which means that a PS3 and two new games is roughly like going 6 times to the soccer stadium, i.e. "buying" 9 hours of entertainment. With two PS3 games you can definitely spend a LOT more time than that, plus the fact that you will only buy the co
Participating, yes. Watching, probably not. (Score:3, Insightful)
As the article says, the survey is about how many people participate in the sports and gaming. If you put it that way, probably more Americans play games than play basketball, more Japanese play games than play baseball. Not at all surprising.
But if someone says he's "in to football", chances are good that he's in to watching professional football, not playing it. Apparently only 3% of Swedes play hockey, but undoubtedly many many more watch it. I think even a lot of football fans would, if placed in front of a TV set, prefer to interact and be challenged by a game than passively watch a game. And either activity would be greatly preferred to actually going out and getting down in the dirt.
And nowhere does the article mention the amount of money spent on gaming vs. sports, and that's the conventional measure of how "big" something is. It's quite possible that gaming does take in more money, but probably not to the proportions reported here.
Useless Statistic (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed.
This shouldn't even be news. I wouldn't doubt if this was true for every country. If they did a survey in the US, I'd bet money they'd find more people play sports games than play sports.
Where's the statistic for how many people play games vs watch sports as their primary recreation?
Re:Seen it coming (Score:4, Insightful)
They are referring to actual football a.k.a. soccer.
There is also a wimpy other side of the atlantic "sport" called "american football" which just is a bad copy of rugby (which is much more brutal than american football since you dont wear any wimpy padding). Though, you are not actually kicking on the ball with your feet in american football, so why it is called football no one actually knows.
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Add to that, the plays of the NFL are much more intricate... the NFL is more of a tactical contest between coaches than probably any other professional sport.
Re:Seen it coming (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't hate it because it's American, I hate it because it's boring. I actually tried watching it for a while and I found that it consists mostly of commercials, with short bursts of football in between. If they would just get on with playing instead of having constant advertisement filled breaks it might be more interesting.
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Watch a college game sometime (Penn State!).
They move along quite rapidly.
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they tried(when the world cup was in the us) to cripple soccer in the same way : 4 quarters in stead of 2 halves.
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Well, the same is true for hockey.
I got tickets to a corporate box a bunch of years ago to watch a pro-hockey game. Now, I'm no expert on hockey, but then they were all skating around
Re:Seen it coming (Score:4, Informative)
False.
There are three commercial breaks per period, for 30 seconds. 30 seconds. They are not taken while play is ongoing. They only occur after play stops due to a puck leaving the playing surface or a penalty (though not for icing). If no one is penalized (including offsides, puck leaving the playing surface / touching the netting), then it is very possible that the commercial break won't even be taken. They do not whistle play dead in the middle of it just to get a commercial in.
My guess is you just weren't paying very much attention.
Re:Seen it coming (Score:4, Informative)
While I can't definitely tell you what initiated the TV timeout, when I turned to my co-workers for an explanation they said it was a TV timeout. (Me, I am not a hockey fan and the tickets were free -- I just turned and said "WTF are they doing now??")
I'm sure there is some measurable rule which defines how it's done, it just wasn't obvious to me and I didn't know such a thing existed.
According to wiki [wikipedia.org]:
Which, to me, reads kinda like the rules for Fizzbin [wikipedia.org]. ;-)
All I'm saying is there are TV timeout in the game, likely even the three you detailed. Maybe not for every commercial break, but they do halt game play specifically for commercials at some points in the game.
Cheers
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Canadian Football is a faster paced version of American Football. I don't like the sport in either variety myself, but just saying, some people like Canadian football more because the plays are longer, there are less downs, and over all it just progresses faster.
If you want to talk about a slow national sport, look at baseball. The sport has immense history in the US, but it is painfully slow.
Soccer football I'm not a fan of either. It is much faster paced, but not as brutal. Never watched rugby, but so far
Re:Seen it coming (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to talk about a slow national sport, look at baseball. The sport has immense history in the US, but it is painfully slow.
Here we invented a sport that lasts five days [wikipedia.org], and usually lose to the Australians at it.
Re:Seen it coming (Score:4, Interesting)
And yes, I am American, I played actual football, aka soccer. It has just as much physical contact, significantly more demanding on the body, and requires a huge amount of stamina. Do me a favor, go run for 45 minutes, take a 10 minute, and run for another 45 minutes. I'd love to see those NFL athletes have heart attacks over that one...
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I'd love to see any soccer player (even in pads) take a hit from an NFL player and get up.
Oh, wait... he'd fall over if someone even ran close to him.
Different skill sets, bud. NFL players are built for power and quick speed, soccer players are built for stamina. You take either out of their element, and they'll falter.
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Don't mix football with the american version of football that's more a sub-division of rugby.
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Plus diving legs-first (rather than shoulders/padding) into a high-speed tackle whilst actually trying to get a ball... cause, you know, sometimes this happens: ouch
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Re:Seen it coming (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's popular to hate on American football because it's American, but the types of hits and tackles legal in the NFL would mean half a rugby team would be paralyzed by the end of the season
I'm gonna have to call bull shit on that one. I have sneaking suspicion you never actually watched a professional rugby game before. There is little difference between the severity of the hits and tackles. In fact, I definitely see more blood and injuries with rugby. Also, the play doesn't always end when you get hit/tackled and rugby. American football players generally get a good 20 second rest. American football is pretty much rugby with much more resting.
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American football is pretty much rugby with much more resting
Watching American football and baseball always leaves me with the feeling that popular American sports are designed around frequent advert breaks.
Re:Seen it coming (Score:5, Interesting)
IAAARP (I am a American Rugby Player)
Rugby tackles can be just as hard however they typically aren't, why?
1) After a rugby tackle there isn't a whistle. There isn't a TV Time Out or a play clock. You either have to pick, ruck, or roll
2) There is no padding. NFL Players constantly use their padding as armor or a weapon. It's like saying I can hit people harder with a baseball bat than with my fist. No shit, there's less possibility of self damage with the baseball bat.
And your argument of "tactical contest between coaches" makes it sound more like a mindless game of chess. (Which I'm not arguing that it's not). Every single rugby player has to be able to make split second decisions and see the entire field.
Third, the type of game that Rugby is would leave most NFL players on the sidelines gasping for air.
1) NFL games are split up between 2 teams (Offense and Defense) that rotate out roughly every 4 plays. Rugby usually has 1-2 subs at most. Meaning all 15 players per team are on the field during the entire match.
2) NFL regulation matches are 4 quarters-15 minutes long. However this is usually spread out over 3ish hours. Rugby is 80 minutes spread out over roughly 90 minutes. (10 minute halftime).
Finally, I suggest you watch some stuff on youtube. There are plays and combinations that make the NFL look like tic-tac-toe.
You'll teach a bunch of Rugby players to play American Football much easier than vice versa.
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Re:Seen it coming (Score:5, Insightful)
I play one aerobic sport quite seriously (football aka soccer). I find that aerobic sports (and quasi-aerobic sports, such as volleyball) tend to be more fun to play. On the other hand, i find that they are generally rather dull to watch as the strategic intricacies are largely removed. You may talk about split-second strategic awareness that a rugby player might have and i could spill equivalent verbage about soccer. However, the reality is that while there is some sort of beauty about so many minds independently and in real time coming up with collective "brilliant" solutions to sports problems (such as scoring a goal or a try), such decisions are far less cerebral than those you get in american football and baseball.
Or, to put it another way, you typical rugby match on TV looks like a physical contest. The team that is fitter and more skillful usually wins. Or, rather, that's how it is for soccer and certainly that's how it looks on tv for ruggers. Real time "strategic" or tactical decisions in soccer are nearly nil. Who to substitute and what formation to play are mostly it. there are a few set pieces, but they are of secondary importance.
Baseball is a perfect strategic game. It's incredibly mathematical and lends itself to all sorts of analysis that is simply not possible in soccer. In soccer, "players working together" comes down i'd say 80% to personalities and at most 20% to complementary skills - such as having somebody with a good cross paired with somebody who is good in the air. In baseball, the situation is reversed. Sure, personality matters somewhat as it does in any sport, but players skills can be matched (both teammates and opponents) on far more levels. there are literally thousands of decisions that go into any baseball game that can be reviewed and discussed intelligently. In soccer there are maybe a handful.
So, I love soccer. I train 3 times per week on the pitch and gym most other days. But, other than picking up some ideas for my own game, I find it incredibly tedious to watch. Baseball and american football stimulate the intellect far more and builds far better dramatic finales because of this. Plus, the games are better structured. Maybe 3 televised soccer matches in 20 are still interesting and plausibly competitive in the last 5 minutes. I'd say at least 5-6 out of 20 baseball games and 13-14 american football games out of 20 could make similar claims.
Re:Seen it coming (Score:4, Interesting)
How many American Football players would be in the same position without their armour?
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Don't forget about the fact that it's not really Football (seeing as you hold it with your hands most of the time).
Re:Seen it coming (Score:5, Insightful)
If you actually knew any history about football, you would know that the "foot" in "football" has absolutely zero to do with kicking. It has to do with the fact that it's played on foot, as opposed to other historical games that were played on horseback. Football's origins go back much further than any other modern sport (possibly as far as the last century BC), hence why the term "football" still applies, even though under the original broad definition, basketball and baseball would also qualify. Neither Soccer nor American Football is close to how "real" football was originally played in most places, that honor goes to Rugby. (Although both Soccer and American Football do have roots going back for enough, it's impossible to say *for sure* that there weren't certain places that played with similar rules. Rugby just most closely resembles the most popular form of the game.) The only significant thing American Football added that wasn't there since the beginning is downs, and a turnover or punt due to not being able to gain a certain amount of yards in a certain amount of downs (first put into place in 1882). Soccer changed the game altogether. Yes, American Football is just as close or closer to how the game was originally played than Soccer is.
Re:Seen it coming (Score:4, Informative)
That is a more or less accurate, but rather misleading summary. What you call "real" football was unruly mayhem. It wasn't an organised or codified sport. And the idea that it was called "football" because it was played on foot is plausible, but as far as I know is only a theory.
The first codified form of football was association football, which later was informally called "soccer" by the English upper-class college crowd (the term soccer was hated by the English lower-class because they thought it was a snobbish upper-class word; now they hate it because they think it is an American word).
From association football evolved rugby football (invented at Rugby University), which spread and evolved into American/Canadian/Australian football. Being a newer form of football, the rules for rugby weren't as well known or adhered to by the sailors who spread it, so local variations arose.
Association football was popular in the US, but the Americans then learnt the rugby style game from Canadian college students. The US Big Five ivy league colleges then voted on which form of the game to officially adopt, and it was 3-2 in favour of the rugby style. From there, American football grew to become the dominant form in the States, and soccer has been playing catch-up there ever since.
Man, this is like the old days in rec.sport.soccer, so I might as well dust off the old sig...
Alan Douglas
Soccer Guy/
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Reading up on it just now, Australian Rules Football also has its roots in the same big hodgepodge that comprised "football" before various regions started making official rule-sets. (Or in other words, it doesn't come from Soccer, American Football, Rugby, etc.) It's also probably closer to how football was originally played in most places than Soccer and American Football.
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Re:Seen it coming (Score:4, Funny)
Rugby gets its name because it is as entertaining as receiving a rugburn.
Well, you know, a lot of the common ways one might receive a rug burn are well worth it...
Re:Seen it coming (Score:5, Interesting)
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Any mention of 'football' outside the US means proper football i.e. soccer. Noticing the report came from Sweden should have indicated which to most people i.e. not Americans who probably think Sweden is where re-made home videos come from.
Ironically most people think that soccer is an American term to refer to football, whereas it actually comes from the phrase 'association football'.
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Slang abbreviation of the word "association".
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Hi! It looks like you're unfamiliar with a dictionary [reference.com]. Do you want some help with that? </clippy>
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I thought Sweden was where all the cute blondes come from.
Yes Association Football (Score:2)
Football - as known by most of the world. This is a game where the ball is controlled by the feet. That is why we call it football.
I don't know what to call that stop-start activity you have in the USA. Football is not a word I would choose for it...
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Informative)
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Thank god...at first I thought those values in those columns were percent. double-digits suicide rates would be sick...
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Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)
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So the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe [wikipedia.org] isn't a country now?
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Well, with a population of ca. 157,000 [wikipedia.org] (in 2005) and the fact that the suicides are listed by "suicides per 100,000 people per year", I think the fact that there is 0.0 male and 1.8 female suicides in 1987(!) [wikipedia.org] - which basically means there was probably only one suicide in that year and it happened to be a woman - we can safely say: the data is insufficient to make a valid statement about the distribution.
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You should watch the Lions. The ball gets touched by a foot approximately every 3 plays.
Working out why this is so requires only a rudimentary knowledge of the rules of American football and the Lions record: 0-11.
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You play the ball with the foot, all the time.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with why it's called football.
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How the hell is this insightful?
The summary says that playing computer games is more popular than playing soccer or hockey combined.
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Why is this insightful? The survey was about playing sports, not watching them. I'm not entirely surprised, either. Both sports require two decent-sized teams who meet regularly, which is a lot to organise. Something like squash or badminton is much easier, since you just need 1 or three friends and time on a court. A computer game just requires you (friends are ideal, but you can find substitute-friends on the Internet if you don't have any). I played ultimate frisbee over the summer, and when the we
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Re:Sad Health (Score:4, Insightful)
Because doing anything for fun that isn't pushing the human body to new heights isn't worth doing.
If your not doing sit-ups while posting on Slashdot, then you should be arrested.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
.. because too many people can no longer even set foot on a tennis court without being out of breath we have substituted physical prowess in competition for mental reflex prowess. Pushing the human body to new heights is a sport, sitting on your ass in a chair isn't a sport. Counter Strike isn't a sport. Team Fortress 2 isn't a sport. It's a substitute activity for people either too fat or too lazy to go outside.
ANYONE HEALTHY PERSON CAUGHT PLAYING VIRTUAL TENNIS IN THE SUMMER SHOULD BE ARRESTED! ANYONE HEALTHY PERSON CAUGHT PLAYING VIRTUAL BOWLING ANY TIME OF THE YEAR SHOULD BE ARRESTED!
Go outside people.
I'll buy that argument as soon as ESPN stops calling NASCAR a sport.